This last December I went to Disney World for the 15th time. (No joke!)

I decided it would be fun to visit Disney World as a responsilbe adult for the first time ever.

Well, that didn’t work out so well since “responsible” probably means having money to pay for a ticket. I did the next best thing though – I hit up the free Disney attractions, namely hotels.

My favorite was the Polynesian Resort.

This place had everything. Free towels

Free drinks. Free lays.

And best of all, this amazing volcano pool.

They usually only let kids on the lava slide, but I’m 33, so I look like a Mom.

When I told the lifeguards the girl in front of me was my daughter and too afraid to go alone, they let me on.

My “daughter” wasn’t actually afraid and jumped on the slide without me. I totally freaked out when it came my turn, but luckily the kids behind me gave me a good pep talk.

One of the other moms offered to wait at the bottom of the slide to catch me, just in case I started to drown.

After the slide, I joined my new kid friends in the pool for a little marco polo

until some toddler crapped in the pool. Everyone left and the lifeguards closed the pool for the rest of the day.

While I sat on the beach wondering what to do now, I saw it. Cinderella’s Castle. Disney World was within spitting distance almost. I had to go. I’d find a way, money or not.

Just then, one of those monorails cruised by on its way to the Magic Kingdom. Maybe I could just sneak on one or something.

When I approached the gate, I met Sven, the hot Dutch Disney employee. Sven just so happen to have a thing for American women and I just so happened to have a thing for Mickey Mouse. It was a win-win situation.

After a heavy petting session in the employee lounge, Sven pulled some strings and got me on the next monorail for free.

I didn’t occur to me until I saw these newlyweds on the monorail why Sven was so into me – apparently flirtatious single women in their 30’s are hard to come by in Disney World – every female there is either married with kids or part of a church group.

As soon as I got inside the park I realized just how outnumbered I was by children. I also realized that people weren’t willing to take my picture unless I pretended to be posing next to kids they thought were mine.

So, the first thing you see when entering the Magic Kingdom is Cinderella’s Castle

It was as just as impressive as an adult as it’d been as a kid. Nothing changes much in Disney World.

I take that back. One thing had changed. The stroller situation. When I was a kid, most parents used to make their children walk everywhere. Nowadays, kids get pushed around everywhere, like little princesses.

They’ve even changed the flow of pedestrian traffic to handle the stroller over-population situation.

I mean, just look at all these freak’n strollers!

And now they have stroller parking garages everywhere.

I must say, it didn’t take long before I starting feeling a little self-conscience. You know, being the only woman not carrying a baby on her hip or pushing a stroller.

So, I borrowed one for awhile. It totally worked. People stopped staring at me so much.

I soon realized though, how much pushing around a stroller really sucks. So I ditched it.

It wasn’t just the family-centric environment that was making me feel out of place, though. It was all the weird costumes people were wearing.

Like all the teenagers girls wearing either little girl clothes

or slutty big-girl clothes

Or the little boys dressed like pirates (which I found strange, considering that pirates were historically theives and/or rapists)

Or all the little girls dressed up like princesses (which I also found odd, considering the fact that princesses are notoriously ungrateful, spoiled rich brats who never have to work hard for anything. Why would you want a daughter like that?)

After being surrounded by enough princesses all day, though, I too caught princess fever. I mean, hey, what woman doesn’t wanna be rich and powerful?

I found the store where princesses shop and picked out the perfect dress

Then I saw the price tag. So unfair. How come only girls with rich parents get to be princesses?

After a good cry, I settled on a princess hat.

but even that was too expensive

After leaving the store feeling totally defeated, I ran into this lady in the crazy ugly pants selling Mickey Mouse balloons. Mickey was my man! A balloon would chear me up.

But no. Too expensive. Surely there was something with Mickey mouse on it that I could afford in this stupid park. Maybe Mickey Money?

Nope. They don’t sell Mickey pennies. Would you believe even the Mickey milk was crazy expensive?

I finally accepted that I’d leave empty handed and never be a princess.

Then I saw this sign

A bathroom for princesses. At least Disney World let us working-class-folk feel like princesses while using crapper

Of course the tampons in the princess bathroom were totally over-priced, so I bled all over myself all day long. Thanks Disney!

When I came out of the bathroom, I saw Daisy Duck taking photos with people.

I wanted to get a pic, but the line was an hour long.

I thought maybe the Aladin line would be shorter since Americans think Middle Easterners are terrorists, but no.

Goofy’s line was the absolute worst. That stupid dog was even charging for pictures. I cheated and snuck a picture in front of him when he wasn’t looking.

The only thing I could afford to pose with was this boring nutcracker, which isn’t even a Disney character.

After an incredibly frustrating day of disappointment after disappointment, I decided to cheer myself up on some rides.

Big problem though. CRAZY lines!

Thunder Mountain

had an almost four hour long wait.

After an hour in line, tried to cut ahead

but some kid ratted me out, so the employees kicked me out of Adventure Land. I headed over to Frontier Land to ride The Pirates of The Carribean, but wouldn’t you know, I had to a two hour wait there.

I had the luck of being stuck behind this newlywed couple for the whole two hours. If you’re a single, childless woman in her thirties and want to torture yourself, I highly suggest going to a kids’ park where everyone your age has a family or is about to start one with their new husband that they can’t keep their hands off of. It’s more effective than water-boarding I bet.

While on the Pirates of the Carribbean, I learned even more about pirates. They apparently like to also sell women into sexual slavery. All the more reason to dress little boys up like pirates!

After the disappointing pirate ride, I decided on a new strategy. I’d go on all the boring rides that nobody else cares for, like It’s A Small World,

and the Carosel of Progress

(which isn’t so much a ride but a revolving stage with a bunch of mannequin-robots talking about how amazing electricity is)

and finally The People Mover

which isn’t really a ride either, but rather a box on wheels to take a nap in

I got my first real break when it came time for the parade. While all these poor suckers sat on the ground for hours, waiting for an unimpressive parade

I headed over to Space Mountain

and got on the ride in no time

Would you believe I had a narcoleptic attack during the ONLY happy moment I had all day? So unfair!

When I woke up, all groggy and pissed, I realized I was done with Disney World and these kids and the happy families and cheezy newlyweds and strollers running into me and princesses demanding Daddy buy them another dress. Screw this feeling like an outcast all day crap.

Everything changed, though, when I saw this woman.

Another narcoleptic!

And then these dudes walked by,

Hipsters! (one of them even had a weed leaf tattooed on his shin). Maybe this place wasn’t so bad after all.

A couple hours later the sun went down and this happened.

Then this.

Maybe this place really was magical still.

I finally made it back to my hotel, feeling pretty good about the day.

And then I ran into these people. Now, honeymooners I can understand, but who the hell gets married in Disney World?

Just as I was about to crash on the couch for the night like these other freeloaders

I saw him. MICKEY!

With his wife of course. The one person I wanted to meet was with his wife. And charging money for a picture with them. This guy was even greedier than Goofy.

Money or not though, I still got a day in Disney World and a picture with my favorite character. All was right with the world again. The end.

While a lot of this story is made up, the whole princess bit is not. If you want to be horrified, try cruising around on Disney’s Princess website for awhile, especially the “parenting a princess” page. By the way, the employees are now told to call every single female under the age of fifteen “princess,” even the tomboys who hate that girly crap. It’s ridiculous. http://disney.go.com/princess/

It’s not that uncommon for people in New Mexico to either a) live in their cars or b) appear to be living in their cars. What struck me as odd with this particular car, though, was not the fact that her stuff covered every square inch except the front seat, where her dog sat, but that it consisted of nothing other than trash (with the exception of that bright orange back scratcher in the window).

So I was sitting there thinking about how overwhelming and chaotic it must be to live like this when all of a sudden, she got out of her car. Dukes of Hazzard style. Yes, we’re talking a Bo and Luke Duke window exit. The best part was that she was totally unashamed and nonchalant about her behavior, not to mention really, really good at it. A few minutes later, she came back and jumped right back in the same fashion and drove away, presumably to run another normal-person errand, like buying stamps.

Of course, because this is New Mexico, where everyone’s got some level of weirdness, no one seemed to notice or think anything of this lady’s Dukes of Hazzard tendencies. Or her car full of trash. So here we come to yet another thing I love about this state – it reminds me of New York City – you can be as unusual as you want and no one really gives a damn.